


Tomorrow

by LittleLynn



Series: Littlelynn's Christmas Gifts 2020 [12]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Bathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28362027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLynn/pseuds/LittleLynn
Summary: Qui-Gon once thought that he was well suited to padawans. When he had been knighted, there was little else he wanted more than a student to teach, he had always liked the younglings, took extra shifts in the creche, felt soothed by their vibrant presence in the force. And so he hadn’t waited long - certainly not long enough, before taking Feemor on.
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: Littlelynn's Christmas Gifts 2020 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2076951
Comments: 5
Kudos: 67





	Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tessiete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessiete/gifts).



> Merry Christmas Tess!

Qui-Gon once thought that he was well suited to padawans. When he had been knighted, there was little else he wanted more than a student to teach, he had always liked the younglings, took extra shifts in the creche, felt soothed by their vibrant presence in the force. And so he hadn’t waited long - certainly not long enough, before taking Feemor on. 

He had thought, once, that Feemor’s success - for he was a calm and collected jedi that any master would be proud of - was proof of how well suited he was to teaching, to helping shape young jedi. Now he knew it was more a reflection on Feemor’s many qualities, than it was on Qui-Gon. 

Then had come Xanatos, and Qui-Gon was sensible enough not to torture himself with the whole tragic story in his head once more. He had replayed his failures on a loop in his head since the day Xanatos had slipped from him, until his mind had been forcefully distracted. At least Xanatos had done him the courtesy of laying bare to him all of his many, many faults as a master. He no longer held a delusion that he was well suited to padawans, and had planned to spare the initiates of the temple his inadequate guidance.

His grandmaster had, as he often did, had other plans. It had never been that he couldn’t see how brightly Obi-Wan shone, that was impossible to miss, and it had never been that he didn’t think Obi-Wan worthy of the position of his padawan. It was that he had  _ known _ that he was unfit to master such a bright spark. That Obi-Wan - that any initiate - would do so much better under someone else's' tutelage- anyone elses’. 

Allowing Obi-Wan to misinterpret this as his own shortcoming, had only been the first of many new failures he had paid his new padawan. Obi-Wan hadn’t been with him for a year yet, and already he had lost count, but today was another. 

Obi-Wan was in his arms, barely conscious, as Qui-Gon ran with long strides through the woods, back to their ship. Obi-Wan was thirteen years old and had bled for him more times than Qui-Gon was comfortable with, it was staining his hands right now. With one arm around Obi-Wan’s back and the other under his knees he couldn’t escape the way his padawan was shivering violently, but still his dutiful padawan tried to put pressure on the wound in his side, as he had been asked. He always tried. 

Really, this was a product of that first failure to this reserved boy, and Qui-Gon knew it. He knew it was why Obi-Wan pushed himself so hard, why he took so many risks, why he drove himself to the very edges - and far too frequently beyond it - so that nothing he did could be considered a failure. He knew why Obi-Wan had insisted he could get to the security console today, even as hostile forces bore down on him, he knew why Obi-Wan was so terrified of not completing a mission. 

He also now knew what it sounded like to hear his padawan get shot. He vowed to do better. When he had cut down the enemy droids and reached Obi-Wan, he had been bleeding profusely, pierced by a primitive bullet, and with what little breath he’d had to speak, he’d apologised for his failure. 

Even now, with it so urgent and the need to clear, Qui-Gon knew he would struggle to get through to Obi-Wan that he was a good padawan, that he would be a jedi, that his safety was more important than the mission, every time. That the deficiencies were Qui-Gon’s, not his own. 

Qui-Gon was not well suited to padawans, he knew.

It was a relief when he reached their ship, and he carried Obi-Wan’s shaking form to the fresher. He sat Obi-Wan on the lid of the toilet and grabbed for the medkit before crouching down in front of him. His padawan was bleeding, fading in and out of consciousness, Qui-Gon brought his hands up to the wound, hovered around Obi-Wan’s hands, small, delicate and drenched red, and his own, large and callused and  _ useless _ in comparison. 

Obi-Wan whimpered in pain when he stripped off his shirt, and he cried out, even as he clearly tried to suppress it, with a sound that Qui-Gon knew would haunt him for the rest of his life, as Qui-Gon was forced to dig the bullet free. 

“Shh padawan, you did well. It’s out,” Qui-Gon tried to soothe, as had once felt so natural for him when he spent time in the creche, but now the words felt unsatisfactory and ungainly in his mouth. 

He had shown Xanatos affection, and he had fallen. He had shown Obi-Wan none, and he was bleeding.

Obi-Wan continued to cry and shake with pain and Qui-Gon reached for the bacta, smearing the gel on his fingers, knowing it would be far more of a balm than any words he might manage. Obi-Wan’s pain was worse for a short moment as Qui-Gon pressed on his wound to rub in the gel, but then it lessened, as the wound was numbed and cooled, already healing, and Obi-Wan didn’t flinch when Qui-Gon used medstrips to hold the wound closed until it as healed. 

He stood and looked at his hands, covered with hsi padawan’s blood and the bacta, a viscous paste over his hands. He looked at his padawan, slumped back against the wall, skin tacky with sweat and his own blood. 

Qui-Gon washed his hands, he wanted to scrub until the first layer of skin - and possibly the memory too - was shredded from him, but Obi-Wan needed his attention. He couldn’t shower, not with his wound, not without washing away the bacta and disintegrating the medstrips. So Qui-Gon ran a bowl of warm water and soaked a cloth that he then started running across Obi-Wan’s skin, trying to take away the worst of the blood and grime and sweat.

He worked carefully around the wound, not disturbing his lacking medical care, Obi-Wan’s whimper when he got close to the area was like a lash on him, at least in part, because of how hard his padawan had tried to suppress it. 

Tomorrow. He would do better tomorrow. 


End file.
